Rethinking Global Institutions for Today's World

As climate change worsens and geopolitical conflicts intensify, international institutions are increasingly maligned. While the US and its allies might bemoan the inability of the UN Security Council to restrain state aggression, in other areas ranging from emissions reductions to debt financing low- and middle-income countries often see international institutions as serving rich-world interests at their expense. The one thing almost everyone agrees on is that the system needs an overhaul.

To begin to understand why global governance institutions like the UN, International Monetary Fund, and others seem so ineffective in today’s world, remember that in the aftermath of World War II when these institutions were created, the world was a very different place. It was much poorer, with two-thirds of the population in 1950 living in extreme poverty, a proportion that fell to less than 10% by 2015. It was also less informed, with half of all people 15 and older unable to read and write, compared to only 10% illiterate today. And it was less free. In 1950, most people lived in a closed political system – whether a colony or autocracy – while today, despite recent democratic backsliding and ongoing struggles for equal rights, some two-thirds of the world’s people live in a relatively open society.

Nation-states are also less powerful than they once were. That might sound counterintuitive, given resurgent nationalism, the war in Ukraine, and the escalating great power rivalry between the US and China. But, in a transition noted as early as 1997, the end of the Cold War and a wave of globalization catalyzed an unprecedented and ongoing redistribution of global power from national governments to businesses and market participants, civil society organizations, cities, and other global (or so-called nonstate) actors. This trend has only accelerated as the digital revolution has created a new, theoretically borderless global landscape, in which states are just one actor among many, and in some cases not even the most powerful among them.

But while the reality of global power has changed, and more people have more resources and access to information, and thus higher expectations and aspirations, our global governance institutions have remained trapped in a bygone era. They are still based almost entirely on nation-states, and they still reflect the global power dynamics that prevailed 70 years ago. They are, for the most part, centralized, exclusive, and closed, with a small group of members – principally, the victors of World War II – setting the agenda. The private or civic sector may be invited to comment or participate in side events, but their involvement is rarely meaningful. As a result, the business of global governance tends to be adjudicating conflicting national interests, as articulated by a handful of foreign policy elites.

In today’s world, in which people and global actors have more agency, resources, awareness, influence, and expectation to be heard than ever before, we need global governance institutions that are more inclusive and responsive to addressing the concerns and problems that matter to humankind. That means meaningfully and fairly addressing climate change, the impacts of technological disruption, and inequality.

The problem is that our institutions were not built for the challenge. Though they have taken on an ever-expanding portfolio, the fundamental problem they were designed to manage was, though complicated, straightforward: prevent interstate war. (The other major objective – promoting economic growth and stability – was primarily in service of ensuring peace). These institutions adopted the industrial-era organizational form finely tuned for solving linear problems: the bureaucracy, which sorts all people and problems into boxes and then applies rote procedures optimized for a proscribed outcome. It’s an incredibly effective approach if the goal is to manufacture automobiles, create soldiers, or distribute welfare payments.

But the urgent problems of this century are not only complicated, they are complex. Unlike a linear system, which has fixed inputs and predictable outcomes, a complex system involves countless independent agents and processes, whose behavior constantly adapts, rendering outcomes that are emergent and inherently unpredictable. Think of climate change, which involves the interaction of numerous biological, chemical, and geological systems, each continuously evolving and responding to the others, as well as human activities, such as food production, migration, and energy use. A closed bureaucracy lacks the adaptability and information feedback loops needed to address even discrete aspects of such a complex challenge.

And, unlike in the case of interstate war, the causes and effects of a problem like climate change are not rooted solely in states. The migrants and refugees of decades past were fleeing state repression; the migrants of the decades to come will be fleeing a range of environmental catastrophes that might have little to do with the behavior of the state in which they happen to occur. As Jonathan Blake and Nils Gilman of the Berggruen Institute note, the nation-state is a political unit ill-suited for the governance problems of the 21st century, as crises such as climate change are planetary in scale, yet their impacts are felt locally.

The global institutional model we have needs updating. Climate change is but one of several complex challenges that cannot be effectively managed by the state-centric, bureaucratic, closed institutions of the 20th century. We need new institutional architectures and practices that do several things. They need to prioritize the interests of people and of the planet above the narrow interests of states. They need to enable much wider, more inclusive participation, both in order to mobilize the kind of “all-hands-on-deck” action these complex challenges demand, as well as to generate constant flows of information and feedback. And they need to demonstrate measurable results in order to build legitimacy.

One model for achieving this in practice is an “impact hub”, a type of global institution that brings together and coordinates all the actors working on a specific, concrete problem and that employs metrics for results. Impact hubs could help form the foundation of a networked institutional ecosystem focused on the wellbeing of people and the sustainability of the planet, shifting global governance from the centralized, closed, state-oriented brick-and-mortar bureaucracies of the 20th century to a messy, flexible, interlocking web of institutions oriented around goals that advance human flourishing and bring human activity in line with the constraints of the biosphere.

Architecture

An impact hub is an issue-specific institution that brings together a set of global actors working on a specific, discrete global problem and that orchestrates, drives, and de-conflicts the collective work of the hub's members toward common, clearly measurable goals and outcomes. A hub could take a variety of organizational forms, but all of them have two common features: (1) a core node, usually a nimble secretariat or other small grouping, positioned at the center of networks of government and non-government actors, and (2) a mission that is clear, specific, finite, and measurable – not, for example, “promoting human freedom” but “ending transnational human trafficking.”

The structure and participants of an impact hub vary case-by-case, depending on the problem and the array of global actors working to solve it. A hub might be time-bound, dissolving after its objective is met. A centralized funding source is a plus; independence from capture is a must. A hub does not build institutions from scratch, rather it brings together and helps coordinate players that are already there, whether they be states, subnational governments, civil society organizations, businesses, universities, or others.

There are examples of impact hubs already in existence. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, brings together a wide range of public and private actors to deliver vaccines to children in developing countries. Since its inception in 2000, Gavi has immunized more than 888 million children in the developing world against communicable diseases. It is perhaps the most developed and successful example of a hub, but there are others, most at early stages, in areas ranging from food security to access to justice.

Unlike in traditional state-based institutional models, which bring national governments together to exercise hierarchical authority over a set of actors in a particular issue area, a hub allows for a more fluid, complex, and horizontal set of power relationships, based not on directive authority, but on influence and catalytic capability. It embeds actors in a network – an example of what the UN Secretary General calls “networked multilateralism” – and it allows for the participation of many. Yet it also provides enough direction, structure, and measurement to get things done.

Focus

The impact hub model entails a conceptual shift in the focus of global institutions from issue areas to targets. Rather than big, sprawling institutions organized around broad sectors such as security, development, or the environment, impact hubs focus on specific, discrete objectives.

The existing international system has already recognized the efficacy of this approach and developed a set of benchmarks. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which include 169 specific targets, are focused not on state interests, but on the wellbeing of people and the planet. States have agreed that meeting the SDGs by 2030 is important, but what’s lacking is the institutional architecture to sufficiently harness and steer global efforts toward achieving them. Impact hubs could help muster and coordinate the resources, expertise, and relationships of global actors toward meeting the SDGs. One could imagine an impact hub for each, or at least several, of the SDG targets.

Another, parallel idea that breaks down complex challenges into pragmatic steps is mission-oriented innovation, an approach that urges the public sector to convene and coordinate actors to undertake missions aimed at solving cross-sectoral issues. Missions are time-bound, ambitious, and measurable: achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, for example. In their ideal iteration they are social endeavors, mobilizing a wide range of decentralized stakeholders from across society in a way that builds social cohesion and capital.

Impact hubs may be developed in the service of specific missions. Both approaches speak to the same imperative – to steer the work of global governance toward addressing specific challenges that matter for the wellbeing of people and the biosphere. Doing so will not only make global institutions more effective, but if they can deliver results, it will make them more trusted in the eyes of populations, as well.

Participation

A central feature of the impact hub model is participation. It more formally and operationally involves a wider range of global actors in the work of solving global problems and delivering global public goods. There are many compelling arguments – ethical and moral, as well as pragmatic and performance-based – for inclusivity, but in this case there are two concrete reasons why expanding participation beyond states and deeper into societies is critical to the efficacy of global institutions.

One, exclusion deprives the world of problem-solving capacity. Unlike interstate war or nuclear proliferation, the challenges we face cannot be solved by world leader tete-a-tetes or an elite few making backroom deals. The problems of today are sprawling and complex, cutting across sectors and borders. We need all the resources, energy, ideas, and talent possible working on them.

Two, a wider range of actors means more sources of information and feedback. The ability for an institution to quickly course-correct and address fluctuations and adaptations in a complex system depends on the quality and frequency of the information it receives and processes. As one example, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, nations that participated in global data sharing networks and that maintained integrated, rapid domestic disease surveillance systems were better positioned to respond as the virus moved and mutated. More sources of information and feedback not only enables adaptability, but it also strengthens accountability by allowing for more points of oversight and monitoring.

The specific methods of engagement and channels of information flow will vary depending on the hub and its objective. For instance, a hub built to deliver solar power in rural areas will have different operating protocols for engagement and information than one focused on exchanging potential pandemic disease surveillance data.

In general, however, the suite of tools, principles, and practices of collaborative governance offers ideas. Collaborative governance is an umbrella for various forms of novel public engagement that enable regular people to work with officials to design and deliberate public policy. It encompasses many techniques – ranging from citizens assemblies to participatory budgeting. But all forms of collaborative governance are about enabling people to more directly and more meaningfully participate in governance, share in institutional power, and engage in feedback loops with institutions.

Collaborative governance might sound more appropriate for state- or even local-level institutions. But part of the problem with global governance institutions is that they exist in the stratosphere, disconnected from the wants and needs of populations. Imagine if citizens from around the world could more directly assert their preferences in the work of institutions, by, for instance, helping design and deliberate international environmental treaties or trade agreements.

It might seem impossibly messy to directly involve masses of individuals in deliberating the work of global governance institutions, but new technological tools enable mass participation at scale. For instance, the government of Taiwan uses online consultative processes to solicit the input of millions of citizens in proposing, selecting, and designing new policies. The method uses open-source software tools (such as Pol.is) to facilitate deliberation sessions with civil society in order to generate popular consensus for how the government should address difficult or controversial subjects, such as the status of ride-sharing service Uber or gay rights.

By embracing more expansive and what might seem like radical models of participation, global governing institutions – whether impact hubs or of any other organizational form – can become more effective at identifying and acting on the issues that matter for people.

The Global Institutions of the Future

Impact hubs represent one idea for how to update global governance institutions so that they better prioritize people and planet and effectively manage the complex challenges of the 21st century. It is not the only model, nor should it be thought of as a wholesale replacement for state-based institutions. States will continue to matter, and certain challenges – nuclear nonproliferation, interstate war, and others – will continue to be best managed by national governments.

The problem right now is that the system is titled too far in the direction of states, such that it is disconnected from the reality of who is making and shaping global affairs. The future of global institutions should be a fluid, messy ecosystem of interlocking hubs, organizations, and networks that is participatory, impact-driven, and attuned to the needs of people and the constraints of the biosphere.